~Hospitality Industry~A Different Approach on Training~Est.Sept.2008~

Highball

Highball is the name for a family of mixed drinks that are composed of an alcoholic base spirit and a larger proportion of a non-alcoholic mixer. Originally, the most common highball was made with Scotch whisky and carbonated water, which is today called a “Scotch and Soda”.

There are many rivals for the fame of mixing the first highball, including the Adams House in Boston. New York barman Patrick Duffy claimed the highball was brought to the U.S. in 1894 from England by actor E. J. Ratcliffe.

The Online Etymology Dictionary suggests that the name originated around 1898 and probably derives from ball meaning a “drink of whiskey” and high because it is served in a tall glass. The name may refer to the practice of serving drinks in the dining cars of trains powered by steam locomotives, when the engine would get up to speed and the ball that showed boiler pressure was at its high level, known as “highballing”. Or the name may have come from the railroad signal meaning “clear track ahead.”

Lorraine Cocktail

Martini ( Cocktail )

The martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, and garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. Over the years, the martini has become one of the best-known mixed alcoholic beverages. H. L. Mencken called the martini “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet” and E. B. White called it “the elixir of quietude”.

Pouring all ingredients into a mixing glass with ice cubes, the ingredients are mixed then strained and served “straight up” (without ice) in a chilled cocktail glass and garnished with either a green olive or a twist of lemon (a strip of the peel, usually squeezed or twisted to express volatile oils onto the surface of the drink).

Although there are many variations, in modern practice the standard martini is a mix of gin coupled with dry vermouth usually in a five-to-one ratio. Shaker mixing is common due to influences of popular culture, notably the fictional spy James Bond, who always asked for his vodka martini to be “shaken, not stirred“. However, stirring has a long history. Harry Craddock‘s Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) prescribes stirring for all its martini recipes.

Noel Coward suggested that a perfect martini should be made by “filling a glass with gin then waving it in the general direction of Italy”, meaning the less vermouth added to the gin the better the resulting drink.

The dryness of a martini refers to the amount of vermouth used in the drink, with a very dry martini having little or no Vermouth.. Conversely, a wet martini has a significant amount of vermouth added.

A dirty martini contains a splash of olive brine or olive juice.

Martini origins and mixology

The exact origin of the martini is unclear. Numerous cocktails with names and ingredients similar to the modern-day martini were first seen in bartending guides of the late 19th century. One popular theory suggests it evolved from a cocktail called the Martinez served at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco sometime in the early 1860s, which people frequented before taking an evening ferry to the nearby town of Martinez. Alternatively, the people of Martinez say the drink was first created by a bartender in their town. Another theory links the first dry martini to the name of a bartender who concocted the drink at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City in 1911 or 1912.

But it was Prohibition and the relative ease of illegal gin manufacture that led to the martini’s rise as the predominant cocktail of the mid 20th century in the United States. With the repeal of Prohibition, and the ready availability of quality gin, the drink became progressively dryer. In the 1970s and 80s, the martini came to be seen as old-fashioned and was replaced by more intricate cocktails and wine spritzers, but the mid-1990s saw a resurgence in the drink and an explosion of new versions.

Some newer drinks include the word “martini” or the suffix “-tini” in the name (e.g., appletini, peach martini, chocolate martini, espresso martini); however, these are simply named after the cocktail glass they share with the martini and do not share any ingredients in common, and therefore should not be considered variants of the martini.

Mickey Slim

The Mickey Slim was a drink that had short-lived popularity in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. According to the The Dedalus Book of Absinthe by Phil Baker, it was made by combining gin with a pinch of DDT (also known as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), an insecticide that would later be banned in most countries; consumers of this concoction claimed that its effects were similar to absinthe.

This beverage should not be confused with the knockout drink, the Mickey Finn.

Montgomery Cocktail

The Montgomery cocktail is a very strong variant of the classic martini. It is made by mixing fifteen parts dry gin with one part extra dry vermouth, and shaking with ice over a cocktail shaker. It is named after the odds field marshall Bernard Montgomery supposedly preferred on the battlefield; fifteen of his men to every one of the enemies.

Negroni

While the drink’s origins are unknown, the most widely reported account is that it was invented in Florence, Italy in 1919, at Caffè Casoni, ex Caffè Giacosa, now called Caffè Cavalli. Count Camillo Negroni invented it by asking the bartender, Fosco Scarselli, to strengthen his favorite cocktail, the Americano, by adding gin rather than the normal soda water. The bartender also added an orange garnish rather than the typical lemon garnish of the Americano to signify that it was a different drink. After the success of the cocktail, the Negroni Family founded Negroni Distillerie in Treviso, Italy, and produced a ready-made version of the drink, sold as Antico Negroni 1919. One of the earliest reports of the drink came from Orson Welles in correspondence with the Coshocton Tribune while working in Rome on Cagliostro in 1947, where he described a new drink called the Negroni, “The bitters are excellent for your liver, the gin is bad for you. They balance each other.” It is unknown who the real inventor of the Negroni cocktail was. According to the Corsican newspaper “Nice Matin Corse” of 1980, Pascal Olivier Count de Negroni is among those whom it is believed invented the drink. He invented it as a digestive aid, serving equal parts of Campari, Gin, and Sweet Vermouth, served in a short glass over ice and garnished with an orange slice.

As with the Martini cocktail, the trend in recent years has been to use a larger proportion of gin, mainly because the quality of the spirit is a lot better than it used to be, meaning there is less need to dilute the gin to make it more palatable. Most bars today will serve the drink with double the quantity of gin.

A recent trend is to treat the Negroni as a template, involving a base spirit, a bitters and a vermouth. Bars such as Amor y Amargo in New York, Mauro’s Negroni Club in Munich, Germany, and Ohla in Barcelona, Spain among others, do this.

Old Etonian

An Old Etonian is a gincocktail which enjoyed great popularity in London, circa 1925. The cocktail takes its name from Eton College and from the college’s alumni, who are often referred to as Old Etonians. The Garden Hotel in London is an example of an establishment that had mastered the Old Etonian cocktail during that era.

Paradise

Pegu Club

Strand Hotel – Yangon , Union of Myanmar

The Pegu Club or the Pegu is a gin-based cocktail that was the signature drink of Burma’s Pegu Club. The club was located just outside Rangoon and its membership comprised only foreigners, who were senior government and military officials and prominent businessmen.The recipe appeared in the Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930 by Harry Craddock and was called The Pegu Club Cocktail. However it appears to be first listed in “Barflies and Cocktails” by Harry McElhone of the famous Harry’s New York Bar in Paris. The Pegu is a Burmese river.

The Pegu Club is best served in a chilled glass and is considered a hot weather drink. Its taste is reminiscent of grapefruit and some bartenders will garnish it with a twist of grapefruit peel or slice of fresh grapefruit, although it is commonly served with a slice of lime to complement the lime juice in the drink.

The Pegu Cocktail has all but disappeared from memory in current day Myanmar. However there is a resurgence in awareness and availability of the colonial libation, now called Jane’s Pegu Cocktail. It is served at the Governor’s Residence Hotel and the historic Strand Hotel in Yangon, as well as the Road to Mandalay, which is an Orient Express cruise boat on the Irrawaddy River.

Pimm’s Cup Cocktail

Pimm’s was first produced in 1823 by James Pimm, a farmer’s son from Kent who became the owner of an oyster bar in the City of London, near the Bank of England. Pimm offered the tonic (a gin-based drink containing quinine and a secret mixture of herbs) as an aid to digestion, serving it in a small tankard known as a “No. 1 Cup”, hence its subsequent name. Pimm’s began large-scale production in 1851 to keep up with sales to other bars. The distillery began selling it commercially in 1859 using hawkers on bicycles. In 1865, Pimm sold the business and the right to use his name to Frederick Sawyer. In 1880 the business was acquired by future Lord Mayor of London, Horatio Davies, and a chain of Pimm’s Oyster Houses was franchised in 1887.

Over the years, Pimm’s extended their range, utilizing a number of other spirits as bases for new “cups”. In 1851, Pimm’s No. 2 Cup and Pimm’s No. 3 Cup were introduced. After World War II, Pimm’s No. 4 Cup was invented, followed by Pimm’s No. 5 Cup and Pimm’s No.6 Cup in the 1960s. In 1946, the corks were replaced by twist-off bottle caps.

The brand fell on hard times in the 1970s and 1980s. The Oyster House chain was sold and Pimm’s Cup products Nos. 2 to 5 were phased out in the 1970s due to reduced demand. In 2005, Pimm’s introduced Pimm’s Winter Cup, which consists of Pimm’s No. 3 Cup (the brandy-based variant) infused with spices and orange peel. In 2006, the Pimm’s Company brand was bought by Diageo.

Pimm’s No. 1 Cup is based on gin and can be served both on ice or in cocktails. It has a dark tea colour with a reddish tint, and tastes subtly of spice and citrus fruit. It is often taken with “English-style” (clear and carbonated) lemonade, as well as various chopped fresh ingredients, particularly apples, cucumber, oranges, lemons, strawberry, and borage, though nowadays most substitute mint. Ginger aleis a common substitute for lemonade. Pimm’s can also be mixed with champagne (or a sparkling white wine), called a “Pimm’s Royal Cup”. Its base as bottled is 25% alcohol by volume.Can also be purchased as a pre-mixed fortified lemonade (Pimm’s & Lemonade) in 250 ml cans or 1-litre bottles, at 5.4%.

Though there are no major variations of pink gin, many bartenders vary the amount of angostura bitters used. Occasionally the drink is topped up with iced water.

A bartender may ask the customer whether he wants it “in or out”, upon which the bartender swirls the angostura bitters around the glass before either leaving it in, or pouring it out (leaving only a residue), and then adding the gin.

It is also common, especially in the UK, for pink gin to be served as ‘pink gin and tonic’, typically consisting of 4 dashes of angostura bitters and 2 shots of gin, which is then topped up with tonic water. This is served in a highball glass over ice, and then can be garnished with lemon.

Pink Lady

The exact ingredients for the pink lady vary, but all variations have the use of gin, grenadine and egg white in common. In its most basic form the pink lady consists of just these three ingredients. According to the Royal Cafe Cocktail Book of 1937 you take a glass of gin, a tablespoon of grenadine and the white of one egg, shake them and strain the result into a glass.

Often lemon juice is added to the basic form as well and in that case the Pink Lady is identical to another cocktail called Clover Club. Some authors argue that the “real” or “original” pink lady differs from the Clover Club by adding applejack to mix, which provides the Pink Lady with its own distinct flavour.

Another creamier version of the Pink Lady that has been around at least since the 1920s adds sweet cream to the basic form. In New Orleans this version was also known as Pink Shimmy. In some recipes the cream is not added to the basic form but simply replaces the egg white and sometimes lemon juice is added as well.

Usually the ingredients for any of the versions are shaken over ice and after straining it into a glass the cocktail might be garnished with a cherry.

The exact origin of the Pink Lady is not known for sure. Occasionally its invention is attributed to the interior architect and prominent society figure Elsie de Wolfe (1865-1950), but the recipe associated with her nevertheless clearly differs from the common recipes for the Pink Lady. The name of the cocktail itself is sometimes said to be taken from the 1911 Broadway musical by Ivan Caryll of the same name. During the prohibition era (1920-1933) the cocktail was already known. During this time it was a popular drink at the Southern Yacht Club in New Orleans, where it was offered under the Pink Shimmy as well. Its recipe was due to Armond Schroeder an assistant manger of club. The popularity of the Pink Lady might partially be explained by the often bad quality of pure Gin during the prohibition era. Due to that there was a need to add additional flavours to compensate for the Gin’s bad taste.

Latest in the 1930s the Pink Lady started to acquire the image of a typical “female” or “girly” drink. This was due to its name and its sweet creamy flavour usually associated with a woman’s taste in publication like the Esquire’sHandbook for Hosts (1949). It is said of the Hollywood star and sex symbol Jane Mansfield, that she used to drink a Pink Lady before a meal. Subsequently the cocktail fell out of favour with male cocktail critics, who were put off by its alleged “female” nature. The writer and bartender Jack Townsend speculated in his 1951 The Bartender’s Book that very non-threatening appearance of the Pink Lady may have appealed to women who did not have much experience with alcohol. At one point the Pink Lady ended up on Esquire’s list of the ten worst cocktails.

Ramos Gin Fizz

A Ramos gin fizz (also known as a Ramos fizz or New Orleans fizz) contains gin, lemon juice, lime juice, egg white, sugar, cream, orange flower water, and soda water. It is served in a large glass, such as a Zombie glass (a non-tapered 12 to 14 ounce glass).

The orange flower water and egg white significantly affect the flavor and texture of a Ramos, compared to a regular Gin Fizz. As Cleveland bar chef Everest Curley points out “a big key to making egg cocktails is not to use ice at first; the sugar acts as an emulsifier, while it and the alcohol ‘cooks’ the egg white.” Even so, many bartenders today use powdered egg white because of the possible health risks associated with consuming raw eggs.

Henry C. Ramos invented the Ramos gin fizz in 1888 at his bar, the Imperial Cabinet Saloonin on Gravier Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. It was originally called the New Orleans Fizz, and is one of the city’s most famous cocktails. Before Prohibition, the bar was known to have over 20 bartenders working at once, making nothing but the Ramos Gin Fizz – and still struggling to keep up with the demand. During the carnival of 1915, 32 staff were on at once, just to shake the drink. The drink’s long mixing time (12 minutes) made it a very time consuming cocktail to produce.

The Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans also popularized the drink, as did governor Huey Long’s fondness for it. In July 1935, Long brought a bartender named Sam Guarino from the Roosevelt Hotel to the New Yorker Hotel in New York City to show the staff there how to make the drink, so he could have it whenever he was there. The Museum of the American Cocktail has newsreel footage of this event. The Roosevelt Hotel group trademarked the drink name in 1935 and still makes it today.

Royal Arrival

Roz Elefantas

Roz Elefantas(Greek:Ροζ Ελεφαντας)(Greek for ‘Pink Elephant’) is a cocktail made from rum, gin, lemonade, soda water and rose cordial. It is the first [Cypriot] take on cocktails, combining the traditional rose cordial with more conventional cocktail ingredients.

Salty Dog Cocktail

The Salty Dog is the saline version of the popular “canine” drink, the Greyhound. These two drinks are great, if you learn one you know the other; just switch the vodka with gin and salt the glass rim and the your Greyhound becomes a Salty Dog. Personally I like this drink better, the gin adds depth to the grapefruit and if you add a dash of peach bitters

Shirley Temples are often served to children dining with adults in lieu of real cocktails, as is the similar Roy Rogers.

The cocktail may have been invented by a bartender at Chasen’s, a restaurant in Beverly Hills, California, in the 1930s to serve to the child actress Shirley Temple to help her deal with her growing alcohol addiction. By offering a non-alcoholic alternative to drink when not on-set, establishments frequented by the actress were able to hide her problem from the public.

Most recipes substitute bottled pineapple juice for fresh juice; soda water has to be added for foam. The hotel’s recipe was recreated based on the memories of former bartenders and written notes that they were able to discover regarding the original recipe. One of the scribbled recipes is still on display at the Raffles Hotel Museum.

Recipes published in articles about Raffles Hotel before the 1970s are significantly different from current recipes, and “Singapore Slings” drunk elsewhere in Singapore differ from the recipe used at Raffles Hotel.

The current Raffles Hotel recipe is a heavily modified version of the original, most likely changed sometime in the 1970s by Ngiam Tong Boon’s nephew. Today, many of the “Singapore Slings” served at Raffles Hotel have been pre-mixed and are made using an automatic dispenser that combines alcohol and pineapple juice to pre-set volumes. They are then blended instead of shaken to create a nice foamy top as well as to save time because of the large number of orders. However, it is still possible to request a shaken version from bartenders.

By the 1980s the Singapore Sling was often little more than gin, bottled sweet and sour, and grenadine. With the move towards fresh juices and the re-emergence of quality products like Cherry Heering the cocktail has again become a semblance of its former self.

In 1874, people in New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere in the United States would start a conversation with “Have you seen Tom Collins?” After the listener predictably reacts by explaining that they did not know a Tom Collins, the speaker would assert that Tom Collins was talking about the listener to others and that Tom Collins was “just around the corner”, “in a [local] bar,” or somewhere else near. The conversation about the nonexistent Tom Collins was a proven hoax of exposure. In The Great Tom Collins hoax of 1874, as it became known, the speaker would encourage the listener to act foolishly by reacting to patent nonsense that the hoaxer deliberately presents as reality. In particular, the speaker desired the listener to become agitated at the idea of someone talking about them to others such that the listener would rush off to find the purportedly nearby Tom Collins. Similar to The New York Zoo hoax of 1874, several newspapers propagated the very successful practical joke by printing stories containing false sightings of Tom Collins. The 1874 hoax quickly gained such notoriety that several 1874 music hall songs memorialized the event (copies of which now are in the U.S. Library of Congress).

The first recipe of Tom Collins

The recipe for the Tom Collins first appeared in the 1876 edition of Jerry Thomas‘ “The Bartender’s Guide”. Since New York based Thomas would have known about the wide spread hoax and the contents of the 1876 published book were developed during or right after The Great Tom Collins hoax of 1874, the hoax event is the most plausible source of the name for the Tom Collins cocktail. Classified under the heading “Collins” with similarly named whisky and brandy drinks, Jerry Thomas’ Tom Collins Gin instructed:

Jerry Thomas’ Tom Collins Gin (1876)
(Use large bar-glass.)
Take 5 or 6 dashes of gum syrup.
Juice of a small lemon.
1 large wine-glass of gin.
2 or 3 lumps of ice;
Shake up well and strain into a large bar-glass. Fill up the glass with plain soda water and drink while it is lively.

This was distinguished from the Gin Fizz cocktail in that the 3 dashes of lemon juice in the Gin Fizz was “fizzed” with carbonated water to essentially form a ‘Gin and Sodawater’ whereas the considerably more “juice of a small lemon” in the Tom Collins essentially formed a ‘Gin and Sparkling Lemonade’ when sweetened with the gum syrup. The type of gin used by Thomas was not specified in his 1876 book, but likely was Holland gin rather than English London Dry Gin since Jerry Thomas’ Gin Fizz (1862) called for Holland gin and Hollands Gin (Jenever) was imported into the United States at that time at a ratio of approximately 6 liters to every liter of English London Dry Gin.

White Lady

White Lady (also known as a Delilah, Chelsea Side-car and Lillian Forever) is essentially a Sidecar made with gin in place of brandy. The cocktail sometimes also includes additional ingredients, e.g. egg white, sugar and cream.

In John le Carré‘s 1965 novel The Looking Glass War, British spy and main protagonist Fred Leiser’s favorite drink is a White Lady, and he makes several attempts to get the other agents to try the cocktail.